Interest rates all over the world are mostly made up.
That's the verdict of a new study by the International Organization of Securities Commissions, a copy of which was obtained by Bloomberg. It found that more than half of the benchmark lending rates in the U.S., Europe and Asia are "calculated by methodologies that were unclear, not transparent and only rarely subject to specific regulatory standards or obligations." Less than half of all benchmark lending rates, in contrast, were based on actual market transactions.
In other words, the interest rates that affect personal and business loans, and hundreds of trillions of dollars in derivatives contracts around the world, are based on either guesses or lies: Not particularly comforting.
“The risk of manipulation will be greater where participants in the process have both incentive and opportunity to submit inaccurate data or apply a methodology inaccurately,” IOSCO wrote, according to Bloomberg. “Furthermore, where judgment is required in determining the data to be submitted, the problem is particularly acute.”
English translation: When banks can just make up these benchmark numbers, they're likely to cheat. Even when they can't just totally make up the numbers, they still try to find ways to cheat.
Value added is bullshit.
So are interests rates.
The numbers provided by the government are bullshit too.
Does anybody actually believe the unemployment rate?
Or the GDP numbers that are reported?
We live in this age where we give numbers and figures increasing importance even as it becomes clearer and clearer that they do not actually provide the truth we think they do.
Whether it's in education or in the economy, numbers are misleading us - beware the data fetishists who think everything can be measured, quantified and evaluated.
As The Flower Kings once noted, There is more to this world than we see...
Isn't it ironic that the info comes from Bloomberg's company? You know, Bloomberg who phonies up crime stats,financial numbers and the whole damned education system in NYC and has made a fortune under the table doing it. As I've maintained for years, the "$1 a year" mayor's job was always a loss leader to give him entree to the wonderful world of big money graft wherein the pay to play crowd does what it does so well, just with the modern twist of wire transfers to offshore tax havens.
ReplyDeleteI have read reports that Bloomberg's worth has tripled since he took office and thought this sounded pretty fishy--wondered how he had done this in an environment where even Warren Buffett lost a lot of money during the crash of 2008. Figured he had to be doing something under the table and am glad somebody finally said this.
ReplyDeleteI'm told the prices individual schools,are,paying for items and equipment like video cams systems,,walkie talkies, tech stuff...is WAY overpriced compared to the private market. This is the oldest trick in the book in business....overcharge, and everyone involved making the deal profits...the vendor, and the deal maker....it's called a kickback.
ReplyDeleteOf course, the taxpayers,take the hit, as well as poor kids who will get less in services across the board.
Bloomberg himself is definitely taking his cut of this graft, and shuttling the profits off the top,to,his offshore Bahama accounts...with the click of a mouse. Remember how he shut down any discussion of his off shore accounts? He probably has shell within she'll corp accounts. Very difficult to trace.
....shell within shell within shell LLCs...its a beautiful thing...
ReplyDeleteHaving spent 20 pls years as a related service provider in the NYC Public Schools,I saw my share of sleaze, such as room upon room of bought and paid for brand new computers sitting in storage rooms with roofs leaking and opened windows allowing entrance to pigeons,the waste at the Bureau of Supplies (old days) up until the present situation of adaptive technology contracts going to favored vendors, and a whole district of Speech therapy services being farmed out to a single source contractor which is operating under a no bid contract, and supervisors doing the schmooze with the operators of places used for "staff development". That's the low level stuff that's tolerated. Kick it up a few notches and you've got the culture of sleaze of Bloomberg, where crime stats are fudged to allow deployment of cops to revenue-enhancing details such as traffic stops while shootings skyrocket,and a $1 billion Police Academy is being slapped together on toxic soil,and to keep those million trees numbers coming, the contractor recently removed 132 trees which were planted in the last 2 years,ad will have to be replaced at a cost of ??All promoted by the welfare queen of them all Murdoch's Post with its massive tax breaks and phonied up circulation numbers. Sensing a pattern here?
ReplyDelete